


Sentencebent

by ashkatom



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drabble Collection, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:31:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 89
Words: 12,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/pseuds/ashkatom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of prompts from my promptsblog, the format of which is to suggest a few characters and an AU, which I then write three very long sentences about, using entirely more commas than a sane person should. Sometimes I get sneaky and write more than three!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bro Strider, Grand Highblood buying collars of an unusual size at a pet store.

**Author's Note:**

> Said promptsblog is [here](http://www.ashkaprompt.tumblr.com) while my usual blag is over [here](http://www.ashkatom.tumblr.com)!

Working at the pet store reaches true heights of irony - there is nothing more sincerely awesome than playing with kittens, and all true irony contains sincerity at the core - especially since you’re the billionaire tycoon of puppet porn, and in the end you do everything for the lulz.

The lulz reach new heights when a giant shaggy mess of a dude slathered in greasepaint ducks through the doorway, comes up to the counter, and says with a perfectly straight, slightly stoned face, “I need a motherfucking collar, brother, and I’ve been told I can find one here.”

You realise he means for himself and internally take off your cap and clasp it to your chest - it’s not every day a man sees his life’s ideals in the surreal flesh and bone.


	2. Terezi<3Eridan, FLARP gone horribly horribly right. If you can break my heart, i will love you forever.

Sollux took her eye and you took her arm when everything went wrong, and at the end of it you are blind and weary and want nothing more than to curl against Pyralspite’s belly and sleep forever.

Forever, it seems, is not an option; without Vriska to partner with, Eridan has no way to enter FLARP, no easy and legal way to get lusii, and no way to keep you all alive - and Vriska Serket has always been your responsibility.

He pulls on your pitystrings and you can’t help but follow, because you have always been a fool for justice and boys with terrible choices to face.


	3. Bro: Ride that bulge into the sunset. Also enjoy the fact that you are in a hemo-swapped society.

You end up being the one to fasten the collar around his neck - subjugglators have never held much with commitment when they can get their bulges wet, and they’re all the same once you strip them down, panting to get a taste of your colour. You fuck him once at sunrise and twice at sunset and leave more marks on him than he does on you and count it a victory. When he tries to leave, you jerk him back by the collar and attach a tag, because he has no idea what he’s gotten himself into (and neither do you).


	4. SuffPsii. Coffeeshop AU. GO NUTS.

You like this coffeeshop for one reason and one reason only: watching the barista get twitchier and twitchier on his own caffeine is hilarious when you have a paper due and can be bothered hauling your old clunker of a laptop that has an hour’s battery on a good day down there. Plus the guy’s generous with refills and gives you a nod of solidarity ever since you shut down a particularly venomous customer.

You don’t know his name or anything at all past the fact that he’s male, wears atrocious shirts, and gives you coffee, so it’s kind of a surprise when he sits himself across from you in your tiny booth, drums his fingers on the table, and says, “Your laptop thuckth.”


	5. Sollux/Equius, college AU!

You came to college to expand your horizons and ended up realising that you were bi - not that it particularly came as a surprise to anyone. Still, it’s awkward when you realise that because your roommate - your sweaty, snooty, aloof, definitely-got-some-Middle-Eastern-in-there-but-doesn’t-seem-to-have-religion-so-maybe-won’t-hate-you-for-liking-dudes roommate - has a fucking fantastic body underneath the layer of douche.

When it turns out he’s an engineering student and builds honest-to-fucking-god robots, you realise with a sinking sensation that you are at least going to have to attempt to hit that.


	6. Signless/Erisolsprite in dream bubbles

He paces around frenetically as he tries to decide his position on your existence: he doesn’t want to deny the right of anyone to live - ahem, exist - but splitting you apart would be killing you and leaving you together would be killing Sollux and Eridan. The third time he starts on this path of circular logic, you slap him upside the head and then feel bad for doing so.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” he wails, and honestly you’d really like it if someone did - but of course, your life-slash-undeath couldn’t ever be that fucking easy.


	7. Beforus!Sollux / Empress Feferi, steampunk

You give her your body in the most unconventional of ways; you turn yourself into her tool a little at a time, replace your flesh and blood with metal and clockwork that will last longer than you ever could, until suddenly you are more machine than man and more tool than person.

She kisses your lips - cold, removed sensation - and murmurs that she needs you and always will, that this is necessary, that you are the securing pin of her rule and she needs you by her side to have any success at all.

It is only when you realise that you’ve ticked away hundreds of sweeps and done nothing at all for her rule in the meantime, and the cold logic filters through your brain, that you methodically begin to take yourself apart.


	8. Eridan/Equius, olympics au

Some athletes are shameful to the country they represent - you had one incident, when the media pushed you, but you’ve never been so salacious, so attention-seeking as Ampora, who seems to take his medal likelihood as a pass to do whatever he pleases wheresoever he pleases.

The training facilities are large, and so you avoid him and only witness his behaviour on occasion, but it seems your luck has run out when he comes up behind the weights bench as if he’d have a chance of spotting you.

"So I was thinkin’, Eq, with alla this muscle you must need a pretty hefty workout," and before you can politely ask him to stop distracting you, he lowers his eyelids and says in what you can only imagine must be his attempt at sultry tones, “you need some help with your cardio?" and it is the first and only time you almost kill yourself benchpressing.


	9. GHB is the worst pet troll

He comes in late and leaves early, he’s missing more pieces every time you see him, he spreads his shit everywhere and laughs when you suggest tidying it up, and you’re pretty sure Dave hates him worse than he hates the smuppets.

You put smuppets in Dave’s bed to reassure him that nothing could be worse, move the katanas out of the cupboard below the sink and toss GHB’s stuff in there instead, and add bells to his collar when he’s sleeping.

You gotta take responsibility when you bring home a pet, after all.


	10. Dave explains Easter to Karkat

You spend a painstaking amount of time working with Terezi, passing back and forth jpegs until there are more artifacts than actual image, slapping on colours in twenty seconds and running them by TZ until you’re pretty sure she’s creaming her panties over the saturation - and then you sell the fuck out and add in some lens flares, because bitches love lens flare.

The look on Karkat’s face when you present him A Primer on Earth Human Holidays (How to Be Culturally Sensitive) is worth every single tear you shed. And just as you thought, it’s Easter where he loses it - the rant he gives on hopbeasts not laying eggs you batshit naivete-sucking son of a snake-oil salesman is inspired, and you commit every word of it to memory.


	11. Could I request some Vantascest then? Not sure on the theme, anything would be great though

You don’t like thinking about quadrants, because inevitably that leads to thinking about what you’ve given up to become who you are, and everyone has doubts but you need to stay you or there’s been no point.

It would be a lot easier if you could stop thinking of Karkat Vantas. Karkat Vantas, who shares you hatchname and your genes; Karkat Vantas, who infuriates you with almost getting it and then veering off on a tangent of completely wrong; Karkat Vantas, whose hair you want to grab and lips you want to mash against your own to make him shut up, who you’re almost certain would do the same to you because he’s almost you, and you wish you were sure that you’d rather talk sense into him than… well.


	12. Terezi/Dave Post SBURB AU where they find each other again after Alternia and Earth make first contact.

You are more than pleased when you realise that there is an actual red carpet; you make plans to steal it after the premiere and keep it in your block forevermore. It leads you straight to him, sharp and tangy, undulled by age, the abject smell of misery you remember from the Game subdued.

You unhook his glasses and hang them off the low collar of your dress, where he won’t go for them in front of the paparazzi, link your arm through his with a, “Sup, coolkid," and relish the surprise.

He helps you steal the carpet after the premiere, and finally what was missing from life once the Game ended has been brought back, the colours that you thought were gone crystal-clear again.


	13. Jane/Feferi, Reluctant pirates

Feferi shakes out a jacket with far too much brocade and holds it against you, scrutinising: “If you’re a Heiress, you shoaled look like one," is her reasoning, which is plain daft. You’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, on a boat that might fall apart at any second, because Heiress isn’t a title you can renounce and the Condesce is rather against you inheriting.

She presses the jacket against you and says, with a sad smile that means she knows what you’re thinking, “At least part of this dumbass situation shoaled be enjoyable, right?" and then she presses your head into her shoulder and sings strange, otherworldly lullabies as you mourn the life you used to lead.


	14. Dave/Terezi, “a terror to behold."

TG: youd like america   
TG: the first thing new peeps see is a giant green statue of a chick in a bedsheet and a pointy crown all sup homies hope youre not thinking of taking away our human rights nevermind wage slavery and shit better life all up ins here   
GC: OH W3 H4D SOM3TH1NG S1M1L4R!   
GC: 3XC3PT OUR FOXY L1B3RTY ST4TU3 S3T 1MM1GR4NTS ON F1R3.   
TG: this is me   
TG: not making a warm welcome pun   
TG: tz it hurts holding this back i dont think i can keep going   
GC: DONT WORRY   
GC: 1T W4S ON TH3 PL4QU3


	15. Psiioniic/Disciple, 1960s-ish artist colony AU

She makes paper and binds her own books out of it, alternatively stinking up the place and then being nowhere to be found when she finds a quiet place in the sun to sew signatures together. You carve things, mostly wood that washes up and chunks of stone you like the sparkle of, and after a while you fall into a rhythm of sitting together as you work, the whine of your cordless Dremel usually the only sound between you.

She likes covering her books with something beautiful and meaningful to the content, and so in a fit of sentimentality you plane two rectangles of wood flat, carve in a design of twisting, overlapping lines and leave them outside her door; a week later you find a book bound between the plates outside yours with a handwritten note in barely-readable script: _if you wanted to collaborate, all you had to do was ask_.


	16. Roxy/Mituna, ridiculous dance AU

GC: look sw33t1e 1 know h3 us3d to b3 your p4rtn3r but h3s not th3 s4m3 4nymor3   
GC: h1s h4nd-3y3 coordz? shot to h3ll   
GC: h3 do3snt h4v3 4ny sp33ch f1lt3rs   
GC: th3 only r34son 1m st1ll h1s 4g3nt 1s b3c4us3 k1d g3ts h3ll4 dvd roy4lt1es   
TG: im nto sayin im expectin him 2 b a mega whirlwing of sick moves   
TG: i just miss workin w/ him   
TG: u kno how gr8 he was tula   
GC: y34h   
GC: 1 do   
TG: woud u just tell him rox wants 2 meet up   
TG: no pressure   
TG: just groovin ;)   
GC: s1gh   
GC: 1f e1th3r of you st4rt w1th s3xu4l h34l1ng 1 qu1t


	17. Eridan/Kankri, troll romcom

"You need to shut your mouth," he snarls, so close you can see the boredom in his eyes even as he feigns anger. 

"You need to shut yours," you start, before faltering and turning to the director. “I’m sorry, I know this is a unique opportunity, but this script is demeaning to the very notion of kismessitude, and I don’t think I’m willing to sacrifice my ideals for this."

Your only reward is a series of groans; expected, but still hurtful - you’d think someone would care about quadrant portrayal in popular media - except Ampora has a look of relief in his eyes now: you’ve helped one person, and that’s all you ask, in the end.


	18. Dirk/Dualscar, bodice ripper AU

He ticks things off on his fingers, his voice dry and sarcastic in a way that reminds you of nobody at all, certainly not your last lover. “You separated me from my friends, you took away my glasses, you raced me across the Alternian desert, and then you put me in a dress for disguise."

"I’m expected to have wenches about my person," you say, and sweep him up into you arms, “although usually they’re damn better at wenching."


	19. Mituna/Signless, meeting in the dreambubbles somehow

"Oh, Mituna," he says, reaching out a hand to you before letting it drop.

Okay, so it’s not like you don’t fucking know you’re messed up, the looks Tula gives you sometimes and how everything gets less fuzzy around Kurloz are kind of huge clues, but nothing makes you feel smaller than this ffffucking version of Kankri that’s somehow still as sanctimonious but less of a prick, and hell if you can deal with that.

You pull your helmet off and hurl it at a wall, fail to notice it going through said wall, and manage to grit out, “This is _fucking STUPID_ ," and because you’re fucked in the head you burst into tears when he agrees like he gets it.


	20. Rose/Karkat, Vampire and Lovecraftian horror au? (With Kanaya standing by and shaking her head at her friends antics?)

"I say," Rose says, her black-hole skin flickering with the darkness of the grimmest dark that ever darkened and vocal chords straining with the effort of normal language, “It sounds like the chanting is coming from the landing site."

Karkat backs away from the incredibly convenient mist - and conveniently closer to you, while saying, “Sorry, but it looks like the department of common sense has overruled this expedition and the net result is Rose is grimdark forever because the Empress’ cullfork couldn’t get me closer, I am not going in there-"

"Of course you’re not," you soothe him as he backs into your arms, all the better to bite down as he tilts his head to look up at you, “I am. Ready, Rose?"

"Wgah’n," she agrees.


	21. Vriska <3< Eridan. Alternian fashion industry

You do the final touches yourself, contouring her cheekbones until they’re knives, tracing ferocious blue into wings on her eyelids, blending darkener under her bottom lip so it looks fuller.

She kicks her chair with razor-thin heels, chipping away chunks, leans forward to check herself out in the mirror, fluffing out her hair before she gives you a grudging, “I’ll knock the fuckers dead."

"Just you remember who you owe it to," you remind her as you slide one of your own rings on her finger.


	22. Mindfang/Sollux, trolls-on-earth AU and setting of your choice

ou don’t know much about Mindfang, except what you’ve learned from observation and what you remember from Vriska’s hero worship, and the most important thing of all of that is that she is Vriska, grown and stupid, and having to cooperate with her is _total fucking bullshit_.

She shades her eyes from the sun - another bullshit development; apparently Earth’s sun is tolerable during daytime, which sucks because you just want to lie down and die - before pointing slightly to your left and saying, “Do your thing."

You burn a path through the thicket and wonder what she’s trying to find.


	23. Mituna and Kurloz, before Mituna’s accident

Kurloz signs to you, a rapid-fire blend of words asking what’s got your panties in a twist. You laugh and run your hands through your hair before collapsing into his pile, legs folding underneath you, and revel in the grace you have while you still have it. 

"Shit’s going down," you tell him, and invert a thumb, whistling its descent before making an explosion sound. “I am gonna lose my fucking mind, K-Z, and not even ‘Tula knows."

He sits behind you and wraps his arms around you, signs slowly in front of your face since you’re still picking things up. _Ain’t gonna let you go that easy, brother._

You have to repress a shudder and you don’t know why.


	24. Perhaps something with Gamzee and Sollux and the red/black mess they have potential for

You have been dead so many times that wanting to just lie down and stop isn’t funny any more; you are sick to death of all the cabin fever space madness, and you are sick of your friends dying, and one way or another you are going to end it.

Which is not to say you don’t sympathise with GZ, but still. Alternian mercy is a quick cull, and you’re pretty sure TZ will help point you in the right direction.


	25. Psiioniic/Nepeta. “You remind me of someone."

This is a face you are used to scribbling, more oval and long than Karkitty’s, double horns, spikes of hair on the side that you always have to scrub out twice before you get them even (diamonds Aradia, spades Eridan, and hearts Feferi though you put him with Equius when you can because your meowrail needs someone). Given that he’s twice your size and dead as your prey, all strung up in wires, you’re pretty sure that he’s not Sollux, unless something went really wrong in another timeline.

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is you, and the first thing he says is, “Oh, fuck, not you too."


	26. Tavros <3< Jake, Hogwartsstuck AU

It took a lot of bloody work to get Bec as your familiar - apparently cats are more appropriate, but you don’t know where you’d be without man’s best friend! - and now that Nitram’s all but gone and stolen him out from under you, you wish you hadn’t bothered. Not that you begrudge a man a canine friend, but you are going to have to resort to fisticuffs if Bec keeps disappearing out from under your feet all the time.

"He just likes me, I guess," Nitram says when you try to broach the subject in a friendly and gentlemanly way, and since you’ve been forbidden from slapping people with gloves and calling someone a liar is rude, you have to let it go while you come up with some dastardly plot to stop his freaky alien mind powers.


	27. Orphaner Dualscar/female!GHB; single father of asshole children seeks date; single mother of cray-cray children also seeks date.

[truncated it a bit! couldn’t fit everything you wanted in a teeny!fic, sorry :(.]

She’s trashy, her hair is disgusting, she’s wearing trackpants, and she has facepaint on in the manner of all crazy cultists - but she also has hips you want to dig your fingers into and tits out to here, so you have a blank expression pasted on your face as Eridan talks snippily at a kid his own age that looks just like his mother, and not in a good way.

She takes a drag off a cig you graciously gave to her and says, “Your oldest kid, the fuck is he?"

"Out," you say, and stare at the back of Eridan’s head in case the kid manages to grow a clue and figure out that leaving sooner rather than later would be better.

"Out being an asshole," she says, and drops the cigarette to stomp it out - and a flicker of actual interest hits you when you see the look in her eyes and realise she’s baiting you, despite knowing Who You Are.


	28. awkward sufferer walking in on dolorosa and redglare getting it on

You hear laughter, which should have been your first warning, but like a fool you can only think of potential future caffeination and not potential future eye-gouging and pan bleach. The sight that greets you when you enter the nutrition block ensures that you will never ignore warning signs again, as you have never ever needed to see that much of Dolorosa’s leg, and you can’t say you’ve had any great desire to see Redglare with her shirt open to the waist.

You’re not entirely sure what protocol is here, so you walk out a few steps, stomp around in an entirely-believable ‘I just woke up and am stomping towards alertness’ performance, and then go back in, to find Redglare and Dolorosa on opposite sides of the room, both unrumpled and fully clothed, to your immense relief.


	29. Eridan<3<Feferi, (s)he never listens to him/her - it has to be deliberate ignorance

"Fef, you ain’t listenin’," you plead, grabbing her shoulder, “you never do, would you just-"

She shrugs you off, cold and sharp, “I’ll li-sea-n to you when your plans are any good, Eridan!"

You gape at her, your fins going slack because all this time, _all this time_ , she’s been rejecting and grinding your plans into the dirt beneath her heel, and _now_ she tells you why ( _that was black, definitely_ ) and you are goin’ to -

\- to -

\- well, come up with a fuckin’ plan fit for her royal fuckin’ highness, is what.


	30. any/some captor(s) being inappropriately gleeful about terrible puns

He’s - you, but not, tall and filled out and full of holes, but there’s no mistaking the red-blue glow behind the goggles he wears, not to mention your sign is plastered over his body everywhere, like, wow, was he afraid he’d forget who he was?

He blinks a couple of times, dim-bright-dim-bright, and then manages to say hoarsely, “My descendant? I’m beside myself."

You reach up and trace the planes of his face carefully, and solemnly say, “You have me captorvated."


	31. in a trolls recently integrated with earth scenario, the trolls being introduced to the wonders of a snow day

Rose says to introduce trolls to Earth slowly and carefully, since their culture was so different and their planet probably was too for that matter! So you bean Karkat with a snowball and leg it while he’s still figuring out that snow is hard to walk on.

He catches up to you once he slogs through to the sidewalk and shoves snow down the back of your shirt, your prankster’s gambit drops like whoa, and you check off Appropriate Introduction to Winter in your head before showing him how to make snow angels (which he stomps over with glee, _trolls_ , man).


	32. Child Signless doing something like spilling food or breaking something and trying to hide it because he feels guilty, and Dolorosa doesn’t know how to react

You come across the shards of a vase you’d forgotten you had in his laundry pile, and turn it over in your hands as you look at it - because Signless must have hidden it here, and as you’re the only one around, he must be hiding it from you, and that hurts rather more than you expected it to.

He walks in, takes one look at you, and drains of all colour as he starts babbling, “Rosa, Rosa, I’m sorry, I was looking at it and it broke-"

You put the piece down and hold out your hands to him, and the relief in which he comes to you hurts even deeper inside, and you nestle him against you as you determine this will never happen again, because it cannot. “Tell me when you break something," you whisper, blinking away tears of your own, “we can’t fix it if you don’t tell me it’s broken, I’m not angry, I never will be," you say as you rock him, and slowly your heart stops racing and the pain recedes as he nods into your shoulder.


	33. Redglare giving Summoner advice about spider pir8s

"The thing you have to remember," she says, leaning in over the table conspirationally. You think she’s going to unveil some wisdom of the law, or some advice handed down from Pyralspite, but instead she hooks her glasses down and gives you a serious look, before pronouncing, “is that 8itches 8e cray."

You can hear her pronouncing the eights and it kind of makes your stomach roil.


	34. Handmaid/Aradia. Altered states of consciousness.

Your descendant is noisy, and bright, and flutters everywhere she goes in the corner of your eyes; she is distracting, too active and too alive, and worst of all, she is a _giggler_.

You let smoke drift free through your lips on your exhale, refuse to look at her even as she presses against your side and giggles again. “Urusai," you say, before inhaling again and pressing your lips to hers.


	35. ghb/sufferer planting a flower and being really kawaii wrigglers

You have a wriggler who is signless, and a wriggler who is destined to become the next leader of the subjugglators, and they are the most taxing pair of six-legged critters to ever be hatched, you’re sure. This evening, on their shuffling roly-poly exercise, the signless grub found a flower and became obsessed with it, as grubs do, plucking it to show to his friend.

The purple grub ate it, and all you could do was laugh yourself sick as they squeaked murder at each other.


	36. sollux/rose, where Sollux is a bipolar schizophrenic and Rose is his therapist that he is also dating

"I’m aware, of course, that I’m corrupting you irreparably," she says right into your neck, her lips catching on your skin as you fight to pull her shirt off, stopped only by the fact that her arms are pinned against the desk beneath her, those and her legs around your skinny-ass hips her only support, “but I have to know - _oh_ \- that you’re aware how damaging this is for you."

You pant into her hair, already halfway gone when you finally extricate her shirt and toss it off the desk, knocking her fancy nameplate off. “Jutht maketh it hotter," you say, and decline to mention that being with her like this is the only thing that makes the voices stop.


	37. Equius/Sollux, spaceship au

He comes by once a week despite the fact that you know your maintenance period is more like once every four, and under his care the inflammation that you thought would never leave the biowire port sites recedes, and stops itching all the fucking time. When you ask why, his stiff response is that leaving you running with sub-optimal hardware does not behoove the Empire, and your heart sinks when you realise he thinks you’re just another tool.

When he doesn’t show up again, you send him a snarky ping about _mii22iing your date_ , and you’re so surprised when he shows up in the Helmsblock ten minutes later that you accidentally let the lights flicker.


	38. john/jade species swap as colorswapped kismesises, crazy limeblood powers

You like your position in society; it means you get to keep your lusus around and you’re immune from culling laws and you get to help out any of your friends who need some extra cash since all you do with yours is grow things!

You reevaluate your position on the latter when you come back to your hive one day and find everything stuck to your ceiling. That’s bad enough, but the only person who could have _bonded them on the molecular level_ is your kismesis, and he is going to be _so smug_ about this, especially since you can’t deny it was a cool prank!


	39. darkleer<>dolorosa dolorosa survives being killed by dualscar by virtue of becoming a rainbowdrinker, so mindfang takes dolorosa with her when she goes to get her arm made/fixed

This is another of Mindfang’s games; she has been playing with you more cautiously since you came back from the dead, moved to the psychological rather than her usual ham-fisted physical games. You know she’ll savour your reaction, but you can’t help reeling back at the sight of Darkleer - who seems similarly beset by you, a strong change from his sober, Empirical demeanour when he _shot your son_.

"I take it you’ve met," Mindfang says and sashays through the door, leaving grief and regret in her wake.


	40. Jade & Aradia attempt to build a TARDIS

Aradia swings upside-down off one of the girders as you clamp your sonic screwdriver between your teeth, fine-tuning the engine so your TARDIS will _purr_.

"Did you put in the vworp-vworp?" Aradia asks, giving you a psionic nudge.

You hold the casing for the exhaust up, the next part to go in, as you say, “Most important part, _duhhhh_!"


	41. Eridan and Sollux are horrible at this whole black romance thing, Psii and Dualscar should totally show them how superior they are

"Look at them," your ancestor murmurs into your ear, an invisible psionic pressure fizzing between the two of you, something that nobody will never feel the way the two of you can. It sinks into your skin and vibrates hollowly between your horns as he continues, “They’re full of crackth and love to fall to pieces, they don’t have the thame core we have."

He divests you of your shirt and your skin thrums at the barest contact of his knuckles grazing your sides. “Bet mine thtartth begging firtht."


	42. RosexJohn pegging

Rose wraps her hand around the thick, silicone _object_ strapped to her ladyparts and taps her fingers against it; her nails are the exact same colour as the, the _thing_ , and you are sure she did that on purpose just to freak you out! “It’s in the name of research, I assure you," she says, and pats her thigh. “Your maidenly virtue shall remain unharmed, and of course I will still respect you in the morning."


	43. using dreamselves to create altered states of consciousness

Dirk - 

\- grinds into his hand, presses into his thin mattress. His glasses fell off fifteen minutes ago; AR’s probably laughing it up as much as a 13-year-old artificial intelligence that thinks Roxy’s hot can laugh at a meatsack’s needs, he’s never told AR that Rox probably has one hand down her panties whenever they speak, fair’s fair - he tightens his hand and jerks his hips and -

\- stalks the streets of Derse, notes the headlines, checks Roxy’s still drifting into things. When his breath stops and for one crystalline moment, everything fades away and seems unreal, he hardly notices.


	44. teeny smut prompt: any kind of helmsman smut with any characters

He doesn’t - exist below the waist now, which fills you with a quiet, blank horror; he is not designated as a _person_ anymore either, merely a subject of the Empire, one that needs feeding and clothing and medical attention. The fact that you cannot distance yourself from the boy you knew when you were all six even though he isn’t a troll now means that you are likely to get culled when the next donation is called, except that he is very, very smart and a touch insane, which you can be resigned over but can no longer fault him for.

"Tho," he says, and he should not be able to use ship’s property like this, should have _no control at all_ over his own power, especially not to the point of having it surge up your legs and making it _sing_ , “You fuck thomeone elthe, and I’ll be there the whole time."

The lasciviousness in his voice is what sends you to the edge; helpless in his power, you agree, and he lets you fall against him as you shudder.


	45. Tavros/anyone, not ignoring his disability

"I- I can’t-" you stutter, feeling heat rise to your cheeks and burn. Dave is between your knees, his hands braced on the metal plates almost casually, and you _hate_ that you can’t give him what he wants, that this was something taken from you too, like if Vriska couldn’t have you then nobody could, “Dave, I can’t- feel-"

"I know, babe," he says, before turning his head and- oh, running his tongue along one of the plates of your thigh, leaving it damp and tilting his head so you can _watch_ , and when you reach out with a shaking hand to take off his sunglasses his eyes hook on yours and you can’t feel him, can’t get off, but Dave between your legs, tonguing obscenely all over you, finds something deep in your brain and _pulls_. "Just enjoy the show."


	46. Dualscar/Sollux

He’s so much _bigger_ than Eridan, and you don’t even mean that in a _you know what I mean way_ ; he’s an adult and you should be terrified down to your bone glurge at the way his horns have grown, at the fact that you come up chest-high, at the fact that he’s built enough that he could probably _literally_ crush you, but you, you have two things: psionics, and experience at stomping seadwellers into the ground. He seems used to fighting psionics, or at least trained in anti-psi combat; the first thing he did was try to break your concentration by presenting a shit-ton of targets, also known as dirt in the face, so you’ve locked him down to the point where he wouldn’t be able to breathe if you twitched your pinky.

You crook your finger, pulling on a thread of psi that slices through his armour like a hot knife through butter, watch his tongue dart out to lick his lips as he considers his tactics, and allow yourself to smirk.


	47. Karkat, Rose, meteor. karkat is writing something, rose betareads

The scrawl of her pen makes you flinch as it scratches its way across her - no, your grubfucking idiotic grand gesture of one out of fifteen pages that you deigned to allow her to see, because you are a _leader_ and if Rose Lalonde thinks you can’t lead her in creative yet expressive uses of a semicolon she has several neatly-organised clauses coming. She insisted on printing it as one of the hallowed traditions of her kind ("Humans?" “No, pedants.") and you’re sure she did it just to torture you, as you wait for her verdict.

When she gives you the sheaf of paper back, there’s pity in her eyes that should be Gamzee’s domain, and on the bottom page is her comment: “Thinly-veiled idealisation of our current situation; nonetheless, the prose is not terrible," and you think, _at least she didn’t lie_.


	48. Psiioniic <3 Dirk: Dirk is a troll recently brought aboard the Battleship Condescension for his skill with mechanics

You can count on one non-existent hand how many trolls are authorised to be in your helmsblock, and it’s something you’ve never bothered to monitor because one, it doesn’t change, and two, there’s more interesting data out there. When an orangeblood with improbably triangular horns gets escorted in, you quickly re-evaluate your idea of interesting data.

It only takes a moment to find what you want as he’s digging through his kit, and his palmtop buzzes in his pocket with your message:

wanna know how deep you are iin the 2hiitlii2t

"Neck-deep," he says, affecting a perfectly flat tone as he searches through his toolbag before slapping sensors over your chest, “but at least I’m not in a helmsblock - Oh, wait."

It takes a moment, and the pilot cameras, but then you realise it was a joke; it takes a lot longer to remember that it’s the first time somebody’s made a joke with you in centuries.


	49. Rose and Terezi as mob bosses

Rose’s desk is wide, dark wood that tastes like the air moment before she goes grimdark; she is a clear, bright spot against it, carved out of glass and spiderwebs, and as she raises her bow to her violin you can catch the faint cerulean tinge that has been forever associated with the word _smirk_ to you.

Your claws dig into the wood of her desk, leaving pale rents that do nothing to drown her out. “You know this is the path," you bite out to [a taunting, mournful Bach](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Sebastian_Bach_-_Chaconne_for_violin_alone.ogg), “that’s _what you do_."

Rose says nothing to disprove your conclusions, but nor does she accept your offer, and the music follows you as you leave, again denied your justice.


	50. humanstuck sollux <> karkat, maybe with the boys about to do something stupid and big sister figure Kanaya trying in vain (as usual) to dissuade them

"This is a bad idea," Karkat says, despite the fact that he is totally kneeling over the XBox with you, holding the extra soldering wire in case you need it, “No, changed my mind, this is the worst idea, you are going to set fire to the stupid thing and it’s going to eat through the the carpet and as your knees burn, Sollux Captor, I will shriek and run for my life and leave you behind; this will wrack me with guilt and the discovery of your charred corpse will ensure I need therapy for the rest of my _life_."

"Shut up, KK," you say absently, squinting as you carefully position your length of solder where you need it.

"I agree with him," a cool voice says, and the both of you shriek; you jump, and solder lands on the carpet, burning a small hole right where no rug or carefully-placed armchair will hide it, and Kanaya says, “See?"


	51. Jane/Roxy/Jake/Dirk, quadrant shenanigans

You don’t like this body for many reasons; to you, trolls will always be the Batterwitch, and seeing yourself grey and candy-corned jolts you, even if you don’t let it show - because if you do, everyone else will undoubtedly flip their shit.

The other main reason is also for everyone else, but in a decidedly different way; with a new body comes a new brain, and it reads your friends wrong, as hopeful-feelings wrong, as gender-is-irrelevant wrong, as new pheromones flood your system. You want to pull apart Jane and Jake, you want to curb Roxy, you are in this too deep and you have lost it.

  
AR: Breathe, Dirk.   
TT: I think that may be the problem.   



	52. karkat/your choice. theme/idea: there are benefits to being a mutant

You have made no secret of your opinion on the hand your genetic code dealt you - namely that is is so shitful it could have been plucked still-beating from the bowels of your enemies - but you’re still new to the whole _other people knowing why_ aspect of the situation, and you’re not sure that you will ever be comfortable with it, even if it means that you can function semi-normally in this society of blinded, pan-addled, friendship-disease-ridden sociopaths, which honestly you are _doubtful_ about the benefits of, since they all just got slapped with breeding madness and explaining that your invitations to sit on your magnificent bulge and swivel are, in fact, _hypothetical_ is getting old - and now you come to the point, which is that you have a lapful of unwashed nerd and it seems like a breach of etiquette to tell him to go fuck himself when his tongue(s) is(are?) halfway down your throat.

"Fuck, you’re warm," he whines when he stops for breath, his hips still rolling against yours.

And it’s not that you’re _not_ interested, as your previously-mentioned magnificent bulge can testify, but pailing the idiot when he’s glassy-eyed with hormone floods and giving you stupid compliments is something that you don’t want to do, so you wrap your arms around him and pap him into submission and bitterly thank your gods-damned lucky stars that you’re somehow immune to this shit.


	53. karkat/ helmsman sollux. sexy helmsman shenanigans in the new empress (feferi)’s flagship

Sollux is the first new Helmsman, granted complete bodily autonomy through the efforts of Equius and a complete lack of conditioning by the grace of Feferi, and you’d _think_ that meant that he wouldn’t have to drag you back to his fucking ship the day before Feferi’s even going to see it because he wants to fuck you there, but as always with your assumptions about the common sense of your friends, you are _wrong_ and you _regret_ it.

He presses you back into the helmsblock’s central support pillar and pins you there with psionics, the jacket and shirt of your dress uniform from the Ascension ceremony still attached to you because Sollux Captor has never learned the meaning of the word patience, and you know that the genetic material running down your thighs at his urging will get all over the fucking biowires and cleaning them is impossible, that they are going to eat you and the ship is going to be part you. You and Sollux are never going to have descendants, you don’t trust your genetic material to not contaminate whatever slurry it could end up in, but in your own small way you are going to be part of this ship and part of him forever thanks to his ill-conceived sentiments, and when he presses himself close to kiss you your regrets ease away.


	54. horuss/rufioh. the good old days. something sweet

The two of you are fumbling and unsure of yourselves, but with Damz on your case you have more of an idea of how things work than he does, though through him you learn that inventiveness doesn’t have to mean what Damz thinks it does. He finds you fascinating and will stroke your wings for hours, clanking softly because he can’t leave off all the crazy shit that he uses to keep himself cool, and talk about power-lift ratios and other junk that you’ll never understand, and he’s always surprised when you touch him back.

In retrospect, you think that’s what made you like him so much in the first place, but it ain’t fair to use him because he’s Not Damara, and you think that he deserves someone who can make him as happy as he made you, despite the lack of options around.


	55. Eridan<3<Rose, gillkink: “you can never quite believe they’re real, even with his insides plainly visible before you."

You have to hand it to him: he took your lesson on showmanship and ran with it, and the result is _oozing_ with confidence, despite the fact that he is splayed before you and that you could hurt him easily - and that you will hurt him, because your only option to one-up his one-up is to take this rebuttal and use it as another object lesson.

You’ve long since mastered the art of equipping the Thorns with grace and aplomb, and it is only when you are sure that he’s tracking the light grazes along his flesh with hunger rather than fear that you take one, sharp-tipped and crackling, and push it slowly through the very edge of one of his opercula.

"That all you got?" he sneers after the moment’s tension has burst, despite his obvious pain and the sweat standing out on his forehead, and you tip your head back and laugh and laugh and laugh, because you never thought you would find someone who rushes to their oblivion like you do.


	56. Bee fly/cuckoo’s egg or just mutant Karkat, first time and realising he’s not packing the exact same stuff below the belt as other trolls. Bonus points if his partner’s just like “eh, it’s cool bro" while he freaks the fuck out

You had really hoped that your first time with Kar would have gone a little better than him straight-up fainting on you, but you are just going to go ahead and declare it a minor victory that for once it is totally not your fuckin’ fault, and for that matter you would like to note it as a point of pride that you only thought about culling him the once and you’re pretty sure that’s just because he was screamin’ it at the time, not because old tendencies are coming to surface again.

_The thing is_ , Kar is not exactly troll standard in the pants department and somehow hadn’t figured it out, like by watching porn or even through his romance novels, which you are now side-eyeing for inaccuracy since you know those things get pretty steamy - but anyway, Kar ain’t standard and not in the same way that Captor’s mutated, and you’ve got this nasty feeling that maybe that means he ain’t quite a troll, either.

You wish maybe you didn’t find the thought of that as eerily hot as you do.


	57. Kanaya/Rose: Mother, I have sinned…

GA: Rose I Am Unsure How Comfortable I Am With This   
TT: Hush, it’s a human tradition. A celebration of the awkwardest kinks you have, bringing them into the light and removing their power.   
GA: Well No Its Not That I Dont Understand The Concept Given How Many Sexy Rainbow Drinker Scenarios We Have Undertaken   
TT: Pun noted and appreciated.   
GA: Youre Welcome   
GA: But More That I Am Afraid Of Insulting Your Cultural Heritage  
GA: I Think The Dolorous Nuns Werent Quite The Same As Your Human Nuns  
TT: That is something that you should feel no compunctions over, Kanaya, I assure you. Let’s just see how this goes.  
GA: Very Well  
GA: I Come Across You Churning The Remains Of The Last Grubs Into Grubsauce And Admire Your Musculature In The Dim Gleam Of The Brooding Caverns  
TT: …  
TT: On second thoughts, what was that about rainbow drinkers?


	58. Eridan/Karkat, letting a lover play with your gills is a huge display of trust and submission for a seadweller

You have Eridan Ampora butt-ass naked and squirming underneath you, which even with your sponge-shittingly atrocious standards counts as a good thing since Ascension is coming and you already have enough on your plate without adding culling for spectacular romantic failure to add to the list, but if you’re honest you really want to go all-out and pass the bare minimum of ‘stuck my bulge in another troll’ and aim for the decadent heights of ‘and they enjoyed it.’ On the path to this goal, you hesitantly run your hands over Eridan’s chest, your fingers just brushing the very corners of his gillslits, only to be shot egregiously and viciously down by him yelping and slapping your hands away.

"Kar, that-" he’s purple from more than exertion and you realise you are probably up for culling again, but then he pulls you back down again, clumsy, saying, "-not that, today, not yet," before he does everyone the favour of shutting himself up by sucking face with you, and you make precise note of the meaning of _yet_.


	59. dave/equius. CT: D —> Addi%ion is a powerful thing / TG: so am i / TG: bow down before your new king bitch

He is hemonymous, like Karkat, and you find yourself certain that the similarities stop there - perhaps it is blind foolishness, but to your eyes it is obvious that he epitomises the strength and poise of the highblooded, and so you [reach out to him as a peer](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004728), as is only right and proper.

He - does not _reject_ you - asserts himself and the edge of the table cracks between your fingers as they dig into the cheap wood, as your blood rushes from your head as if you have slipped off a precipice, and you rock forward until you are staring down at the keyboard, unseeing.

This is a public location, and you are in dire need of a towel.


	60. suff/psii - scar worship (uber bonus hard mode: set it BEFORE suff dies/psii has most of his limbs removed)

You have never been hurt, because in a very practical way getting hurt is as good as getting dead for you, and so the lines on Psi’s skin are _alien_ to you - you cannot comprehend of the pain that caused them, because the worst you’ve done is sprain an ankle, which is a singularly lame injury compared to his tapestry of marks.

He leans back on his elbows as you follow the lines with your fingers, his breath hitching occasionally as he explains, “Thith wath from training, I dropped a knife on mythelf - that wath from when I took out the tracker, I had to fake it ath a fight wound - that one wath one of the thurgerieth-" until your fingers lead you to the one you’re looking for, the scar he gave himself by falling unconscious in midair and landing on a rock when he ran away from that life and into yours.

You press your lips to it softly, almost chaste but for the fact that you’re both naked and the intangible feeling of tension building between you, and his explanations stutter away as you replace your fingers with your tongue and show your appreciation of his shared history in a rather different manner.


	61. aradia/your choice. ghosts. surprise us

There are certain tastes you associate with people - some of them are more obvious, like Mr. Sour Cherry Candy and Mr. Appleberry Blast, but some of them are more intangible, like your current lovely matesprit. You like getting people naked because it’s easier for you to smell _them_ , not their presentation, but even then Aradia eludes definition; sometimes she is the scent of a freshly-crushed raspberry and sometimes she’s the scent of raspberries from two rooms away, gone by the time you get there.

You ask her about and she says, “That’s when the ghosts are here!" like that’s not weird, and you look in what you assume is the direction of her face skeptically because you know from weird by now, and her voice drops to a hush as she says, “They think you’re hot," and ruins the delicious spooky vibe by motorboating you.


	62. Dirk<>Roxy, Roman AU, Dirk is a soldier and Roxy an assimiliated native of either Britain or Germany.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [oh god, my history is nowhere near good enough for this; I apologise in advance]

You’ve been here for a relatively long time; good for a scout - a spy, if you’re being honest - but bad for remaining objective; you’re still not sure how you met her, but striking up a friendship with someone from the other side when your forces are making camp a stone’s throw away is bad for your soul.

"So it’s happening, huh?" are the first words out of her mouth when she sees you - she knew you weren’t honest from the moment she saw you, but, and you quote, ‘What’s a little lying between friends?’- and used to your ways, she just pats the seat beside her when you nod, and the two of you pass your last night watching the stars.

You crush Boudicca’s forces, as was to be expected. When you find your unnamed friend run-through and dead on the battlefield, you drop your sword and walk away; you are not sure if you will ever stop walking.


	63. pale summoner, psiioniic(in the helm), ‘i’ll save you, and we both know that that’s bullshit’

You don’t like heading back to Alternia for servicing for many reasons, from the fact that Her Imperiousness hates it and takes it out on you to the fact that you’re completely and utterly banned from any outward-facing networks in case it slips that Helmsmen - ready your awed fucking gasps - are _still sentient,_ and more than that, one got past the Condescension’s security with his hands tied behind his fucking back, as it were.

It’s something different, at least, when she marches a brownblood down by the horn, in front of your prone body where only a few are allowed to tread and all of them have security clearances that don’t technically exist.

"Yo," she says, clearly to _you_. “Tell your coddamn sob story, Captor.”

Your speaker - _voice_ \- hasn’t worked in decades; you light up a screen next to them instead. The brownblood tugs out of Condesce’s grip and sits to read; you find it interesting that she actually lets him.

2up  
welcome two my laiir

"I- don’t understand," he says, glancing up at Condesce. You sigh a burst of static through the nearest speakers.

ii’d offer you a hand but ii’m 2orely lackiing

You see the moment he gets it, mostly because he sends the chair clattering to the floor with how fast he stands up. “No- even you aren’t _this_ sick, Helmsmen are meant to be _latent-_ ”

Condesce smiles, and it’s even more terrifying for how pleasant it is, a perfect PR smile. “Where’d you hear that, Summy?” She twirls her trident before prodding at your helmscolumn with it, her smile dropping away into distaste. “This is what happens to rebels, cafish? So if you fuckin’ start your thing, you best be prepared for the conchseaquenches.”

He barely hears her, you think; by now you’re a second-hand expert in body language, with everything you watch to remind yourself that there’s something more than a Helmsblock, and you can tell he’s upset even if he _is_ all perfect military showboat. You think he’s trying to meet your actual eyes, which would be wearyingly cute if he wasn’t so _earnest_ about it, if he didn’t remind you of - this is _stupid_ , you should be able to think his name after thousands of sweeps - of old times.  


You don’t want to see Condesce beating the earnest out of him.

He shrugs out of his military jacket, still looking up at you. “I think, this time, we agree,” he says, dropping it to the floor. That was a mistake; your tentacles will probably eat it, and it looks expensive. “This- This deserves consequences.” Without further ado, he bows a perfect highblood bow to you, turns, and leaves. Condesce, once again, lets him, which can only mean that assassination would be too complicated.

You’ve seen that walk before. It’s the walk of _I do what is right even though I am essentially fucked_ , and if a ship could taste bile, that would be what was happening right now.

the fuck wa2 all that about

"Choices, ‘Tuna." She picks up the chair and sits down in it, looking half as old as she actually is. "Fuck a bunch of this ship."


	64. Kanaya/Rose dealing with night terrors or something using the phrase ‘help me forget’

Kanaya is infuriating.

You do mean that; for all you love your girlfriend - or, if you are being painfully honest with yourself (which you are loath to be, as being painfully honest with others is a much more rewarding profession) your matesprit, with all the pity the word entails - she doesn’t understand (understands too well, but does not tolerate) the need for an unhealthy coping mechanism or three. You have stepped off the edge of many a metaphorical cliff, willing and not, and although you cannot bring yourself to say it in so many words, you remember all too clearly the rage of your darkness and the blood on your hands; you remember when words failed you, consonants slipping off your tongue in prophecies you didn’t understand, and you much prefer being unable to speak of your own volition.

It is difficult to explain this to Kanaya. It’s not that she doesn’t care, or that she doesn’t understand; merely that she wants you to be better than you are and is an extremely stubborn brick wall when it comes to the ‘acceptable, necessary’ part, which she proves by pouring any alcohol you alchemise straight down the sink - pardon, hygiene trap - and refusing to listen to your explanation that you do, in fact, need to sleep on a regular basis.

It may be because you cannot pronounce basis.

"Fine," you say, mulish, "hlep - help me forget, then." You expect it to work, because the both of you know that there is no forgetting, not after everything the game has tossed at you and not after you have peeled back the curtain to see the inner workings of the universe - but, as it turns out, for all your distracted hours with Karkat’s books, you have greatly underestimated the romantic streak of trollkind.

Kanaya pull you into her arms, glowing softly, and kisses your forehead with more care than an angry, exasperated girlfriend should. “I have already planned the concussive blow,” she says, and you laugh wetly into her shoulder. It is far too easy to forget that everyone here is on your side, sometimes.


	65. Eridan/surprise us, first time after laying a clutch, body issues?

You hover like an Imperial Drone while he sleeps for the first night, utterly wrecked by the effort of - birthing, fucking seadwellers, but even your watchful, leaderly, paternal patience has its limits and you drift off halfway into the morning, right on the floor between Eridan’s shallow recuperacoon and the hastily-constructed egg chamber.

You awake to the sounds of quiet sobbing, and fear constricts around your heart before you can even tell which direction is up; you stumble over to Eridan anyway, convinced that something has died, and stroke his face until he can talk.

"Fuckin’ look at me,” he says, a queer hitch in his throat messing up his words even more than his accent usually does, “or don’t, Kar, I ain’t fit for lookin’ at, I feel disgustin’”

You smooth your thumbs over his cheekbones, relief hitting all at once and making you blunter than you should be; you know that Eridan has always invested too much of himself in his looks, because you’ve been the one who has had to listen to it all through this entire ordeal (and before, and forever), and you give the same answer you always do: “You’re a fucking disaster,” in the gentlest tone you can muster, “but it’s got shit-all to do with the way you look. Go back to sleep.”


	66. Jade/all the bitches. She is the top dog after all.

"Oh my god," Jade gasps, surging forward. It’s not your preference - generally you prefer these affairs to be private, one-on-one, and completely lacking in baby talk, not to mention that you prefer cats - but as Jade is overrun by puppies, even your cold heart cracks, issuing forth a wave of emotions that - dare it not be said - makes you smile until your cheeks ache.

"Welp," Dave says, beside you, and holds up his phone to capture the heartwarming sight of a small ball of fluff entangled in Jade’s hair, "That’s going on Tumblr."


	67. Equius & Sollux, Robotics competition

It has taken you well over a year to build your latest chassis, a form based on classic representations of troll beauty, fully articulated with a range of motion that - being forthright - replicates natural troll movements to a degree that most would think impossible; your programming is rudimentary, but enough to take advantage of the opportunities your work affords. You are well aware that no one person on-planet could do better in the creation of life-like robots as you, and suspect that nobody off-planet could either.

Needless to say, it irks you when the members of the board of robotic enthusiasts you belong to think that they have valid suggestions to offer; especially when, to be brutally honest, the individual offering critique has no possible way to be skilled in the development of true trollish robots - it is an expensive art.

TA: hey 2o your buiild ii2 decent but your programmiing 2uck2, iit ii2 a black hole of poorly-executed 2tatement2 and compromii2ed function2  
TA: fla2h thii2 iin2tead  
TA: ii want two 2ee what happen2 when you actually put that thiing through iit2 pace2


	68. Karkat/the Condesce: Her Imperial Condescension likes to drape Karkat in as much gold and jewels as his mutant body can hold and then pail him senseless.

She makes you pick out the pieces yourself, probably to unbalance you by refusing any favourites you develop; you counter by never picking the same ones twice since she has enough gold that she’s probably her own fucking bank, and as you slide on bracelets and hornrings and clasp necklaces and anklets you wonder if you could steal one or two; you’re treated well enough as someone favoured by the Condescension, but either of those clauses might change and you’re always in favour of exit strategies.

It all weighs you down as you settle across her lap and - ha, serve the Empire, and you know that’s what she likes about it; not only is the jewellery a visible sign of her favour, it’s a show that you are hers, and that all you have came from her, and when she takes it off you (herself, always herself) she shows that all you have is, in a very real way, her continued benevolence.

You cast away the idea of stealing them; you can’t buy freedom with your own chains.


	69. Sollux is, in fact, red/blue only colorblind. Karkat knows this and, one night, miserably, banks on it.

You still can’t talk yourself into thinking that this is a good idea, but it’s the best one you’ve got, because in the light hours of the morning when you’re in your cupe, staring at your ceiling, you know that if you keep trying to be fine on your own you’ll break down - it isn’t even about the sex anymore, or trying to get past the drones, just the simple fact that you need someone else’s shoulder under this burden and your knowledge that Sollux is your best bet, because he won’t ever know.

He’s happy, at first, when you don’t shove him away like you usually do, but he’s not dumb, either, and when you very determinedly don’t throw up any blocks - don’t fuck this up don’t fuck this up don’t fuck this up on loop in your head - he pulls away and asks, “KK?”

You want to tell him that it’s not his fault, but to explain would be to put him in a position he never asked for and to give away the only secret you’ve ever needed to keep, and there’s a lump in your throat that you can’t talk past; when you don’t say anything because you’re too busy choking on it he pulls further away and puts his shirt back on, and you barely have time to think fucked it up, before his arms go awkwardly around you and he accidentally helps you anyway, shouldering your burden in a way you hadn’t - couldn’t have anticipated.


	70. Sollux slurps the innards out of too many energy grubs, flips black on Karkat and picks on him insufferably until KK flips along with him. Somebody gets tied up with a game controller. Everything is sticky and caffeinated.

You know Sollux is doing this because he’s ten pounds of crazy in a five pound sack when he’s caffeinated (and, being perfectly honest, because you are a defensive fuck and can’t help biting when he needles you), but you should know better than to say, “I could beat your sorry, pathetic visage at this with my hands tied behind my back whilst humming a jaunty tune,” to him when he’s like this, because it ends up with your hands actually tied behind your back with a controller and your muscle memory all fucked up; square is not right arrow no matter how much you wish it was, and you can’t even throw the controller at him for gloating, and there is no way to conceal that you have the awkwardest boner.

"Point made, you finest example of ass haberdashery!" you growl, shifting your wrists as he rakes his eyes over you - you can feel the leer, even if you can’t see it - his smirk quotient rising by at least 200% when he reaches your lap; all you can do is squirm and try to not sound like you’re begging as you say, “Untie me and we’ll go again.”

"I don’t know, KK," he says, and your heart drops like a stone, the innocent tone means that you are in for it, “you didn’t try whistling.”


	71. EriNep kismesis; she won’t put up with casteism from THIS douchebag. Green is more than good enough for HIM!

"Oh my fuckin’ god-" you avert your eyes pointedly; you knew hunting with Nepeta would give her ideas above her station, but you didn’t think she’d be so brazen about it, you offered her the opportunity to freshen up, not to prowl around naked and- “Nep, put some fuckin’ clothes on.”

Two - naked, wet, Equius is goin’ to kill you - arms are twined around you, her voice against one of the spokes of your fin makes you shiver as she says, “I have decided to igpaw your silly blood thing, but only beclaws I want you to teach me how to track in water,” and bites your fin to make her intentions even clearer.

"I- You ain’t the one who gets to decide-" she bites deeper and you yelp; and come to gloomily understand how Equius managed to get a quadrant below him despite having his head screwed on straight about the haemospectrum.


	72. Meulin/Mituna. Wordless.

She covers your mouth firmly with one hand until you get the picture, and if a hot bipch wants you to do something with your mouth, you are going to do something with your mouth - Tula would be proud. When you nod to her, she pulls away before signing to you - Your lips are hard to read, let’s talk like this - and behind your helmet, your eyes well up, not because she insulted you but because she did you the favour of telling it like it is.

It’s hard, talking in a language you only half-remember, but sign language relies a lot more on smushing together concepts than it does on grammar and structure and shit, and for the first time in a long time you feel like someone other than Tula and Kurloz gets what you’re trying to say.


	73. Feferi’s not afraid of the drone when it comes, but Sollux is.

"Ssssh," she says, her hands cool on your face as she turns your eyes away from the window; you appreciate the thought, but in all honesty you’d like a little dissociation from the situation, because there is a drone at the door of your hivestem and if you don’t get to copulating you’re going to die, and it really doesn’t help that Feferi is calling upon the memory of a moirail that you never replaced.

And there’s all that, the knowledge of your situation and the lead in your stomach that comes with it and the fear that makes you want to leave your own head, but there’s also Feferi, who trusted you enough to come here and be your matesprit for the one time it would really count, and you owe her better than systematic culling for your failure, so you take her hand and tamp everything - the fear, the sick knowledge that this is the world you live in and that even if Feferi takes the throne she may not be able to change it - you tamp all of it down. “I’m here,” you say, because there is nowhere else to be, and she smiles.


	74. Jade does in fact have a dog cock. Tavros sees absolutely nothing wrong with this.

GG: i have to warn you…  
GG: im kind of weird! you know, downstairs  
AT: iT’S FINE,  
AT: yOU ARE AN ALIEN, AFTER ALL„,  
GG: okay  
GG: i guess even if you freak out i get to record it :B  
AT: i DON’T GET IT,  
AT: iS IT BECAUSE IT ISN’T MOVING,  
AT: bECAUSE I PICKED THAT UP, FROM DAVE’S TERRIBLE SLAMS,


	75. Equius and Dirk, no kink, they each just think the other’s super cute.

It was a mistake coming here; for all that you are lonely with Nepeta gone and for all that she has informed you that you require concupiscent companionship to remain balanced in your life, this place is not where you belong - the places you belong have far less alcohol and more computers, while just being here is making your palms sweat. You recede into the world of machines instead, checking your palmtop - only to blanch in surprise.

TT: Zahhak, is that you?  
CT: D—> I  
CT: D—> Cannot say

You look around until white catches your eye from across the room - a strange hair colour, still - and Dirk gives you a subtle salute, two fingers touching his temple. Your palmtop buzzes again.

TT: You look good.  
CT: D—> Ah  
CT: D—> Thank you  
CT: D—> As do you  
TT: Thanks, bro. I want to fuck you into the floor until you can’t move.  
CT: D—> What  
TT: What?


	76. Feferi/Tavros. Ride the mechanical bull (or some other pun of your choice)

She scares you - and she shouldn’t, because she’s sweet and kind and firm and everything that Vriska has never been, but she scares you and it makes you pity her all the more, because she’s never once talked about the songs of her lusus for all you can hear them; tides all the time, like the tides that have always ruled her life, and you think you can guess a little at why her land is Brains and Fire, but between the quiet wash of her lusus’ voice, the bubbles that froth at her surface, and the murky depths they hide, she will always be water to you, and water is dangerous on Alternia.

She washes over you easily enough because you’re made to be washed over and you’re not exactly against the idea, or for it for that matter, but she kisses like she’s the world’s end and shudders against you and takes the lead so completely that you don’t have to think, that you can let yourself drown in her, and when she’s done she curls atop you and whispers, “If I’d been you, would we be here now?”

Your heart stutters a little and finally you know pity, because she still scares you but there’s a troll in there too, something you were never sure about with Vriska. “I think so,” you say, because things like the Game - cruel, capricious - are inevitable, but perhaps you can grow through them anyway.


	77. Terezi/Eridan. Whyboner.

She is about as sexy as a collection of sticks put together to guard an agricultural site, she’s a smidge too low to interest you politically, and she’s likely to try to cut off your hand the next time you set off a bomb - your hand, you might add, which is just as royal as every other fuckin’ part of you and thus immune from the law unless you murder Fef or something - and you are utterly horrified by the fact that you want her - her! - to pail you until she’s too tired to spend herself running around cleaning up Vris’ messes.

This too shall pass, you remind yourself virtuously, because it’d be really bad if you started pailing your ex’s new kismesis and Vris’d probably call you pathetic and you might not be able to refute her because - Terezi fuckin’ Pyrope, you’re destined for a Peixes. Life is hard and you don’t always get what you want, or what you deserve, but fate has her hand on you and you’re sure this ain’t part of the plan.


	78. Tavros/Aradia. What might have been.

You win against the Scourge Sisters - for once - and Aradia decrees a celebration; you reconvene at her house and wear silly hats and at one point confetti gets thrown, though you’re not sure by who or where it even came from, but it gets in her hair and glitters and she’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen, in the light from her screen that shifts through the spectrum of the movie she put on.

She catches you looking at her and smiles, automatically, because she smiles at everyone she sees; you smile back as your eyes catch and suddenly there is a moment as fragile as butterfly wings between you and you can’t breathe or blink, the voice in your head roaring KISS THE GIRL.

Something in the movie explodes and Aradia whips her head back around to watch, leaving you with the ashes of the moment and the sad, comfortable feeling of knowing that you’ll never have the courage to tell her she’s beautiful.


	79. EriAra: Height of FLARP season and they end up having one of those excited, hours-long finish-each-others’-sentences-conversations where indoor voices become a thing of the past. When things look like they’re winding down, Aradia goes for it.

This is what you like about FLARP - or rather, half an hour ago was what you liked about FLARP, before Vriska and Terezi had snuck off to suck tongue in another room, when the four of you (minus Tavros, who had to go feed his lusus) were all sprawled over each other in your communal entertainment room, watching a movie and not paying it any attention as you debated the merits of the latest ruleset. You’re still debating the latest ruleset, but it’s less fun now since Eridan is wrong and won’t stop adding proof of how wrong he is and is boring you with it, and then because you’re bored and a little resentful of Team Scourge and haven’t kissed anyone except Tavros - it was too awkward to count, really - you take Eridan’s face in your hands and kiss him so he stops talking about the distribution of skill points in high-level campaigns.

He blinks at you, his fins fluttering and a blush spreading over his cheeks, and says, “Wow,” before smiling for the first time you can remember.


	80. Aradia/Nepeta. Mile-high club

"Oh my _pawd_ ,” you say, as Aradia giggles helplessly through the aftermath of shared mutual bliss, “what if there was someone _below_ us?”


	81. Gamzee/Eridan: “bonding” over killing lowbloods with Eridan desperately trying to deny how uncomfortable he is with the entire situation

"Bring him over here, brother," Gamzee says, and you get why the Empress let them have their own religion because you ain’t a judging guy - you ain’t - but the way Gamz ripped through this trio of lowbloods makes it feel like you got something stuck in your throat, an’ now he’s fuckin harvestin’ them for paint an’ that is sick, even if it is just a bunch of rusts. He tips one upside-down and hooks them on the ceiling - he has a _thing_ for doing that, _fuck_ , how come he can’t have a perfectly sane hobby like doomsday machines, those are fuckin’ civilised at least - and slits their throat, before saying, “You gone kinda pale there.”

"I ain’t used to bein’ out a’ the water long," you say, and try to look like you’re appropriately interested in the rituals of the faithful.


	82. Meenah/Aranea. consensual mind-control bondage

Controlling minds, you like to think to yourself, is about so much more than taking command; Vriska may muscle in and smash through locks, but you prefer the subtler approach of study and knowledge - only the susceptible can be mind-controlled, but when you know how to determine flaws in armor, everyone is susceptible. And so, you know Meenah, and you know that Meenah will never let herself relax on the concupiscent platform the way she’d like, because a controlling and domineering personality such as hers can rarely handle giving the reins to someone else - for all that she needs to bleed off the tension before she snaps.

So you wait, until she’s tired of corralling everyone into doing something useful with their afterlives, until she’s tired of the rejection that comes with leadership, and you kiss her sweetly as you take off her clothes, and say, “Allow me.”


	83. Karkat/Terezi… Terezi joins Fathers 4 Justice.

CG: I AM SO AMAZINGLY BOWLED OVER BY HOW STUPID YOUR ACTIONS HAVE BEEN THAT NO EXPLANATION COULD EVER SALVE THE RENTS TORN IN MY BRAIN BY WATCHING THE FOOTAGE, BUT IF YOU’D LIKE TO OFFER SAID EXPLANATION IN ORDER TO KEEP ME FROM BEATING MYSELF TO DEATH ON A JAGGED ROCK, SPEAK! FOR I SHALL LISTEN.  
GC: 1 THOUGHT 1T W4S 4 FL4RP1NG L34GU3!  
GC: 34RTH 1S W31RD  
CG: I HAVE NEVER HATED ANYTHING MORE PASSIONATELY THAN I HATE MYSELF FOR THINKING THAT A REASONABLE AND LOGICAL EXPLANATION.


	84. Vriska and Kanaya are both fashion design majors and that’s where their similarities end, so why must they be stuck collaborating for their senior showpiece?

Your head comes slowly to a rest on your steering wheel. You have a passenger seat full of Vriska Serket, a backseat full of carefully-laid-flat garments, a trunk full of design portfolios, a watch that informs you that you have three hours to set up your show, people waiting on you to give them the items to set up (and requisite college payment), and an engine that stubbornly refuses to start. 

"I can’t fucking believe this," Vriska says, and for the very first time this semester, you find yourself agreeing with her.


	85. Detective Crocker and attorney-at-law Pyrope affectionately hate each other and disagree on both moral culpability and ethical duties of the law, much to the irritation of the Striders, whose suite hosts friendly get togethers and less friendly debates.

"Oh, who cares?” Jane asks as she removes a roast from the oven, fond because she knows that you care, “It’s your job, Pyrope, not mine, and I’m glad of it!”

Dirk slinks into the nutrition block, an aura of saffron delight suffused with a hint of agoraphobia, before he sits in the corner by the oven; used to his behaviour, Jane does not trip over him in the slightest as he rests his head against his knees and says, “Hey,” wearily into them.

"I did warn you to put the books away," Jane replies, swatting you with a spatula as she strides past, "your family is nothing but wordy trouble, like some people I know,” she finishes with a meaningful look at you, and you grin from ear to ear.


	86. any two lowbloods (ancestors included if you wish), comparing first schoolfeeds

TA: 2o whiich cla22e2 diid you 2iign up for?  
CG: WELL, LET ME THINK ON THAT. THERE WERE JUST SO MANY OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO ME THAT I WENT WILD AND CAN’T REMEMBER!  
CG: I THINK PERHAPS MY ROSTER INCLUDES ‘YOUR FUTURE IS BEING REPLACED BY AN AUTOMATON WITH A FORTY-DEGREE RANGE OF MOVEMENT’ AND ‘HOW TO BE PROCESSED INTO NUTRITIONAL SLOP 201’ BUT I MAY HAVE ACCIDENTALLY SIGNED UP FOR ‘SEDUCING YOUR WAY INTO A BETTER LIFE’ INSTEAD. IT’LL BE A SURPRISE!  
TA: ehehe  
TA: ii diidn’t thiink you’d qualiify for the hiigher level cla22e2  
TA: grat2 kk  
CG: SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO DO THINGS WITH OUR LIVES, YOU PERFECTLY GOOD WASTE OF ORGANS.


	87. Kankri/Karkat, both being unused to touching someone else so much and sneaking off for some fun

You shouldn’t be glad that your security is a joke - and mostly, you’re not, but if your security wasn’t a joke and the dancestors didn’t all know your password and if you knew how to reprogram the fucking lock, thanks, Sollux - but if it wasn’t a joke, Kankri wouldn’t have been able to interrupt you in the middle of your latest sordid romance; you got this one off Porrim and it shows, since it reminds you far too much of Rose and Kanaya and their inability to keep their hands off each other in public areas.

"Karkat, I…" he says, before running out of words - miracle of miracles! - and reaching out to you; his hand shakes, which is the final key in making you slide a marker between the book’s pages and put it down.

You take his hand and pity him, which is always a lot easier when he keeps his mouth shut; for all that his prison is of his own making, you understand what it feels like to be sick at your own skin, to know deep in your bones that if you touch someone else that they will regret it and regret you. “I know.”


	88. Aradia and Eridan: budding friendship based on shared interest in history

AA: wrong!  
CA: wwhat  
CA: i aint wwrong  
AA: you are the wrongest of wrongtopia  
AA: they have dedicated a suburb there to you  
AA: here  
AA is sending file ‘primaryevidence.jpg’  
CA: the fuck am i lookin at here ray  
AA: you are looking at one of the only paintings of the coronation of the empress that was actually painted by someone who was there  
AA: note the sacrifice  
AA: that certainly is a shade of green  
AA: it might even be… lime!  
CA: wwell maybe it wwas fuckin metaphorical painters got metaphorical all the fuckin time back then to covver up howw much they sucked  
AA: cite your sources  
AA: 0u0


	89. Signless/Psiioniic—Psii had always just kind of assumed he’d top when he and Signless pailed for the first time

He has the same look on his face that he gets when working on a problem - no, a pr96lem - just before he solves it; you like watching him like this, but you never expected to be the problem, especially when your clothes are halfway across the room and you were previously engaged in seeing how many bruises you could suck into his neck before he stopped gasping and realised what you were doing.

"Thup?" you ask, because you’re pretty sure he still hasn’t noticed the hickies and you’re not a mind-reader.

He smiles at you and your heart melts a little before he says, “I want to try a thing,” and you are so besotted by him that you just nod - and realise that no, words should probably have been a thing, when he flips the both of you over and smiles a smile that is disturbing(ly hot) on him.

"Don’t know what you’re doing, my gloriouth ath,” you say, your fingers twined in fabric as you try to ignore how much you feel like a nervous virgin all over again.


End file.
